Equipment for W2K3 Server and Terminal Services

In running a Windows 2003 Server in Terminal Services mode, within an SBS
2003 environment, for users remotely accessing an accounting software package
is a P4 desktop with a 1 gb of RAM adequate or should it be a good solid
server box?

Les
Sat Apr 08 07:13:20 PDT 2006

Hi Brian,

That box will likely perform fine (but if you're already using it, you'll be
the best judge of that ;-)).

The concern would be with reliability and fault tolerance - most computers
designed as desktops wouln't have much in the way of redundancy; power
supplies, disk subsystems, backup, etc - many single points of failure. If
you have say 10 or even 5 users who rely on the TS for their desktop, then a
single failure prevents all of them from working. A TS can take quite a bit
of time to rebuild, with all the apps and tweaks that make it run nicely.

So if you look at ways to mitigate the risk of failure and take steps to
ensure rapid recovery - you may find you can adequately do this with
additions to the existing hardware and software, or you may decide it's
better to address some of the risks with different hardware.

--
Les Connor [SBS Community Member - SBS MVP]
-----------------------------------------------------------
SBS Rocks !
----------------------
"Tell me and I'll forget. Show me and I'll remember. Involve me and I'll
understand." - Confucius


"Brian Williams" <BrianWilliams@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:B5F89519-D87C-4374-947A-18CE62E4B0D0@microsoft.com...
> In running a Windows 2003 Server in Terminal Services mode, within an SBS
> 2003 environment, for users remotely accessing an accounting software
> package
> is a P4 desktop with a 1 gb of RAM adequate or should it be a good solid
> server box?

Charlie
Sat Apr 08 10:45:54 PDT 2006

The answer depends on how many users, what the application is, etc. But it
also depends on your failure tolerance - most desktops are non-RAID,
non-redundant boxes. So you'll want to think about what happens if there is
a failure, and what those costs are.

A 1GB, P4 box, assuming a reasonably recent P4, and decent HD performance,
should handle 5 concurrent users running a single task. But I'd be surprised
if it were very happy with 10 users and those doing multiple things. (And
these are just my gut-level SWAGs, since I don't know your app or the
particulars of your hardware, and certainly haven't run any metrics on
them.)

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/xperts64

Brian Williams wrote:
> In running a Windows 2003 Server in Terminal Services mode, within an SBS
> 2003 environment, for users remotely accessing an accounting software
> package is a P4 desktop with a 1 gb of RAM adequate or should it be a
> good solid server box?

Russ
Sat Apr 08 12:35:43 PDT 2006

I assume this P4 is at least has HyperThreading?
Bonus = Dual Core + HyperThreading,

On Memory, This depends on the Application you are running
1GB may not be enough
(Find out how much Memory the app uses in Task Manager. and do some math)

Also Some new PC's have SATA RAID 0 on 1 on board.
Although performance they won't be up to a SERVER, they will be better than
just a PC

RAID 1 SATA on a PC Should give you better performance and Reliability.

Once you've done this don't forget to include that server in your backup
management
(I can't tell you how many customers I've seen forget to backup their TS
Server.)
A Simple USB Drive attached to it and run NTbackup will work fine.


--
Russ Grover
Small Business IT Support
SBS Rocks!
Portland/Beaverton OR
Email: Sales at SBITS.Biz
Website: http://www.SBITS.Biz


"Charlie Russel - MVP" <charlie@mvKILLALLSPAMMERSps.org> wrote in message
news:upxVKRzWGHA.1564@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> The answer depends on how many users, what the application is, etc. But it
> also depends on your failure tolerance - most desktops are non-RAID,
> non-redundant boxes. So you'll want to think about what happens if there
> is a failure, and what those costs are.
>
> A 1GB, P4 box, assuming a reasonably recent P4, and decent HD performance,
> should handle 5 concurrent users running a single task. But I'd be
> surprised if it were very happy with 10 users and those doing multiple
> things. (And these are just my gut-level SWAGs, since I don't know your
> app or the particulars of your hardware, and certainly haven't run any
> metrics on them.)
>
> --
> Charlie.
> http://msmvps.com/xperts64
>
> Brian Williams wrote:
>> In running a Windows 2003 Server in Terminal Services mode, within an SBS
>> 2003 environment, for users remotely accessing an accounting software
>> package is a P4 desktop with a 1 gb of RAM adequate or should it be a
>> good solid server box?
>
>